In my experience, the beliefs we hold can seem to have a life of their own. We just have these beliefs, like we have a nose on our face. They can change over time (and even produce boogers), but at the moment we have them, that's what we happen to believe. One difficulty is that a lot of folks seem to strongly identify with the beliefs they happen to have at any particular moment. Sometimes so much so that they're willing to kill for them (or at least become a martyr).

Belief in rebirth can be like that. Another element of belief in rebirth as Stefan has framed it is that even within that framework there are still lots of possible different aspects to believe or not believe. Like do you believe is a soul (or something like a soul?) Or do you believe rebirth is guided by some universal judging entity of some kind? Or do you believe rebirth can only occur in certain forms or certain places, or within a particular timeframe?

Lots and lots of opportunity for beliefs, even if you don't believe ...

Rain soddens what is kept wrapped up,But never soddens what is open;Uncover, then, what is concealed,Lest it be soddened by the rain.

FWIW ... If the bar is not set at the realm of certainty, what becomes of Buddhism except as another realm of uncertainty, however beautifully it may be embellished?

My teacher once said that belief and hope were fine starting points in practice. Nobody would ever begin practice at all without such things, he said. But, he added, "after four or five years (of practice), belief and hope are not so necessary." Why? Because experience trumps belief and hope ... experience is assured and complete, whereas belief and hope by definition are limited; they separate things; and they nourish uncertainty.

Most serious buddhists I know, don't operate from either hope or belief. They operate from the point of view of investigation and experiential trust. "This much" they know and have experienced to be true in what the Blessed One taught ~ so, , based on this, as they practice and study, they trust that what they don't currently know and experience of the rest of his teachings to be true, is certainly as he teaches. No projected time limit on arriving at experiential certainty.

mettaChris

Last edited by cooran on Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

My teacher once said that belief and hope were fine starting points in practice. Nobody would ever begin practice at all without such things, he said. But, he added, "after four or five years (of practice), belief and hope are not so necessary." Why? Because experience trumps belief and hope ... experience is assured and complete, whereas belief and hope by definition are limited; they separate things; and they nourish uncertainty.

If you have asked me of the origination of unease, then I shall explain it to you in accordance with my understanding: Whatever various forms of unease there are in the world, They originate founded in encumbering accumulation. (Pārāyanavagga)

Exalted in mind, just open and clearly aware, the recluse trained in the ways of the sages:One who is such, calmed and ever mindful, He has no sorrows! -- Udana IV, 7

How did he know renunciation would be rest and not frustrated deprivation? Certainly the five ascetics were well practiced at renunciation and just as certainly they were not at rest.

"In this way did Alara Kalama, my teacher, place me, his pupil, on the same level with himself and pay me great honor. But the thought occurred to me, 'This Dhamma leads not to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to Awakening, nor to Unbinding (nibbana)." — MN 36

How could he be sure there was such a Dhamma which would lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to Awakening, to Nibbana? He had already sought out the wisest teachers he could find. How could he know if there was anything more to learn?

"I thought: "Whatever priests or contemplatives in the past, future, or present are feeling painful, racking, piercing feelings due to their striving, this is the utmost. None is greater than this. But with this racking practice of austerities I haven't attained any superior human state, any distinction in knowledge or vision worthy of the noble ones. Could there be another path to Awakening?'" — MN 36

Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. He couldn't have known, right?

"I thought: 'Could [jhana] be the path to Awakening?' Then, following on that memory, came the realization: 'That is the path to Awakening.'" — MN 36

He realized... what does that mean exactly? He knew? He believed? He hoped? He hadn't seen for himself yet. He didn't even have someone else's word to go on since no one else had seen either.

"My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming, released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, 'Released.' I discerned that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'" — MN 36

Now there was knowledge. Now there was no more room for belief. But I wonder... what about up to that point?

I voted yes, but I want to qualify that with the comment that I understand "bhava" to mean "becoming", which unlike some, I don't treat as being synonymous with rebirth.

Apologies if that's confusing or makes you want to call me a crypto-annihilationist.

Metta,Retro.

If you have asked me of the origination of unease, then I shall explain it to you in accordance with my understanding: Whatever various forms of unease there are in the world, They originate founded in encumbering accumulation. (Pārāyanavagga)

Exalted in mind, just open and clearly aware, the recluse trained in the ways of the sages:One who is such, calmed and ever mindful, He has no sorrows! -- Udana IV, 7

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725